Kenya to relocate 400 elephants

2005-08-22 21:24

Nairobi - The Kenya Wildlife Service will relocate 400 elephants to the country's largest national park, from a smaller national reserve in the country's southeast that has too many elephants, says a spokesperson on Monday.

A corporate communications officer, Edward Indakwa, said the $3.2m exercise would begin on Thursday and involve transporting elephants more than 350km to the northern part of Tsavo East National Park, from Shimba Hills National Reserve.

Indakwa said the government was funding the relocation project.

Indakwa said the first 50 elephants, comprising six families, would be moved within 10 to 12 days. He said officials would wait to see how they fare in their new environment before moving the rest.

Elephants destroy habitat

Indakwa said: "With a current elephant population of 600, the National Reserve is choking. The elephants destroy the habitat, break park fences and cause mayhem and destruction in villages surrounding the park."

He said that the organisation's researchers estimated that the Shimba Hills National Reserve could only hold 200 elephants, while Tsavo East National Park had 10 397 elephants, down from a peak of 25 268 in 1972.

Tsavo East suffered its heaviest loss of elephants during the 1980s and early 1990s when poachers decimated Kenya's pachyderms to supply an insatiable ivory market.

Poaching had since subsided, helped by a 1989 global ban on the ivory trade that had seen prices drop and a more autonomous wildlife authority.

Increasing security

The Kenya Wildlife Service director Julius Kipng'etich said his organisation had increased security in the area, where the elephants would be relocated.

Kipng'etich said: "We deployed 83 young ranger recruits to Tsavo East last month ... If the poachers come, they will find us ready."

He said that they would also have regular aerial patrols.

Kipng'etich also said Kenya Wildlife Service had taken steps to reduce the possibility of elephants damaging nearby farms, a constant threat facing wildlife authorities as Kenya's population grew and more people moved to once-empty land to farm, at times close to national parks.

Kipng'etich said: "We have also radio-collared six matriarchs ... and will be monitoring their movements using geographical positioning systems or GPS so that our rangers can drive them away before they reach private farms.

"We want to be pro-active in our management of problem elephants."

- AP